It just seems like an incredible waste of resource when they could be looking at bringing more classic games DRM free to us.

What problem do u have with an Optional client?.

One step closer to Steam, and DRM. No thanks.

Oh your one of "those' Thats why its *Optional*.. sheeesh..

+1 to scampywiak, no client! Every way I think of it, it gradually leads to the dark side.

Irrational fear IMHO. GOG's entire business model is based on being DRM-free and the majority of their customer base if not almost everyone who is a customer seems to have a strong bias for DRM-free games. It is a huge part of the culture both inside the GOG offices and the customer base. From an internal GOG culture perspective it would be a 180 degree shift to remotely consider DRM in any way shape or form considering their extreme stance opposing DRM. From a customer perspective it would be considered an extreme act of hostility by many towards a fundamental principle of the service and would have huge multitudes of people leaving the service to never shop at it again. From a business and financial perspective the remotest thought of embracing any form of DRM based on their past history, vocal views of GOG and their parent company, and the customer base expecations anything involving DRM would be financial suicide. In fact, I would go as far as saying that GOG couldn't destroy their business faster than if they started embracing the idea of DRM with games.

So any kind of fear anyone has towards the thought of GOG ever embracing DRM is completely unfounded, does not tie into their vocal stance opposing DRM, does not align with the company's entire history of operation and is simply irrational.

If GOG were to create a more full fledged software client that included a number of features similar to things offered in the Steam/Desura/Origin/Uplay type clients it would simply be an /optional/ convenience to customers who would like to have such things, and would draw more customers to the platform who desire/prefer that type of convenience as well. It has nothing whatsoever to do with DRM however. DRM is totally orthagonal to offering customers optional software that provides optional conveniences that nobody is forced in any way or expected to use.

Providing such features is not "a path to DRM", it would be a path to reaching a larger audience of customers, making more money as a result, having bigger cashflow, hiring more developers, support people and other employees, and ultimately to bringing more games to the GOG site and further proving that DRM-free is a profitable business model for developers and publishers to consider supporting.

If something like this does show up in the future, people who have no interest in it could pretend it doesn't exist and download their games with thei GOG downloader or web browser or wget or something and just enjoy the greater influx of games from the increasingly successful game retailer as a result.

And since when client = DRM?

Desura wanted to have a word with you.

While I don't necessarily think GOG should do things like how Steam does, I agree with the complaints. While the way the updates have been handled so far was sufficient when the service was dedicated solely to classic games, this is no longer the case now that GOG releases modern games as well. Recent releases require more frequent patching, so the way updating is handled needs to be adjusted accordingly.

In many ways, such a change is a natural step forward and in line with GOG's new direction. However, a full blown optional client would take quite a while to develop. As such, for the time being, they should update the GOG downloader so that it can detect new updates for installed games and install them when prompted.

Explain to me how a DRM free client with functioning patch blocking is a bad thing?

The client would need to be completely optional to not be a bad thing. I don't want unnecessary software taking up system resources.

it doesn't, but for me it's stepping away from what I want to see as PCGaming, I want to have control over the games I install.

Plus this industry has a bad habit of thinking of gamers as one people instead of vast & diverse groups

(Some like "this" , let's find out how to make it a requirement for all) <- not that GOG will think this way but still for some of us may be saying "why risk it".

& I haven't used Desura.

Bethesda, they first started using Steam for Fallout 3. I saw it as good because it was an "option". (it wasn't yet the "all the PC games are belong to Gabe" Steamworks) Now look at the Bethesdian games that have followed. this is but one example why even "Optional" has become a scary word for some.

you say you do not know about Desura, but look at them, they have managed to do this for years. It shows how it can be done. Slippery slope is a fallacy, and the difference between Bethesda and goG is that gOg is basing themselves on an ideology, Bethesda do not (except "monies count" that is). Gog knows that a large number of their customers have this aversion, so there little chance of them doing so.

Your fears all stem from companies that always were DRM-embracing from the start and have used technology to try to increase the amount of DRM they use and to try to restrict and control what people can do. That is a matter of business philosophy and not something inherent in the software itself. These companies have a core belief that DRM is necessary to prevent privacy and that they can and will stop piracy by using it. They may have created software clients as an interface to their storefronts and for the installation and updating of the software they sell, and at the same time they may embrace DRM technologies - but there is absolutely nothing whatsoever that fundamentally ties the creation and optional use of such software to the concept of using DRM to fight piracy, they are totally orthagonal concepts.

GOG however is completely opposed to DRM on every level. I don't know if you have ever read any interviews with the executives or other employees of GOG before, or watched any video interviews with them, so you may not be aware of just how opposed to DRM GOG and their parent company are, and how this is a fundamental viewpoint of the company and their business strategy. I highly encourage everyone to do a web search to find out about the origins of the CD Projekt company themselves and how they came to be years ago, and ultimately how GOG came to be years later, as well as CD Projekt RED the developers of The Witcher series of games. It is very clear that these are not just a bunch of pointy haired business executives with oak desks and leather chairs analyzing stock charts who have never even played a game before, but rather this is a company formed by gamers themselves - people just like the rest of us who are here to buy games. They created a company to do something nobody else was doing at the time and following a set of rules rather unprecedented and to which probably had a lot of people shaking their heads saying "that'll never work". But it does work, and they've very much shown that to be the case. GOG's game catalogue has increased in size by about 50% in the last 12 months and appears to be accelerating which in my eyes at least is a huge confirmation that their business model of DRM-free gaming is successful and validated. I'm sure they feel the same also.

Game client software can provide gamers with quite a number of conveniences and improved user experience potentially, can provide tremendous convenience, provide superior modern communication technolgies integrated directly into the software, can provide more robust mechanisms for updating software, making purchases, social networking, and a variety of other things. These are just simply conveniences, much like the GOG website is a convenience over filling out a paper form and sending it in the mail via postal carrier and waiting 2 months for your games to arrive. There are people out there who can easily use something like Steam but who would be confused as to how to download a game and install it from GOG and manage updates, etc. Just this week alone I've seen some new customers here on the forums seeking help getting games installed who were used to Steam and other services and were stating how complex and confusing they found GOG to be. They said it in a light hearted manner and not as a criticism of the service, and most of us GOG'ers would feel a little surprised that someone would find GOG "complex and confusing" but the fact is that the average computer user is not a sophisticated person when it comes to the technology, and a lot of people need hand holding to do stuff.

Our computers are here to make our lives easier for us, and anything that can be automated or made more convenient to us to save us time and effort - which isn't, is not using the technology to the best advantage. Some people might have an old i486 PC and want to download GOG games and edit their AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS for the rest of their life and scoff at anyone that wants this process to be made easier, but the fact is such people are in the miniscule minority of people out there, they are the smallest possible market and a company wishing to expand and sell more product is not going to have much room to grow by catering to greybeard couch potatoes. The money is where the masses are, and if you're doing something successful you want to reach more and more customers so you have to look at ways to make your product or service attractive to more people, and in the case of GOG they need to explore what it is about other services people use that makes people attracted to those other services.

People can scoff at Steam until the cows come home, and I have my own complaints about Steam as well but the fact is that Steam is incredibly convenient and that people who think it is pure garbage are in the minority. In fact it is the largest gaming digital distribution service out there and it didn't get to be that way by doing everything wrong. Gabe's philosophy was to make the service extremely convenient and easy to use and by doing so create a value proposition that would attract customers to the service. It worked, as Steam is now the most popular service out there. Again, the fact that Valve embraces DRM is completely an orthagonal issue and not something tied to the concept of making things more convenient for people.

The bottom line is that the more convenient any business makes their product or service for their potential customerbase, the more customers they are going to attract to the business. GOG has not to my knowledge indicated any desire to create a standalone gaming client publicly to date, but many GOG customers myself included think they would be foolish to not consider making a client in the future as it is an obvious way to make the service more convenient and accessible to a larger audience, in particular an audience that already exists out there and are using competing services like Steam and like it. To provide some of the conveniences that the Steam client provides, to improve upon it in an open and flexible manner, to do so without requiring anyone to use it, and to provide the best DRM-free digital download service out there would only stand to boost and strengthen GOG's business, and would only stand to bring a multitude of more games to the service and to make the service more attractive for many game developers out there who are attracted to the Steam platform for all of the extra stuff it provides to gamers. Granted, I find a lot of that stuff to be useless crap (achievements, trading cards, etc.) but the majority of people seem to get off on that crap, so having any of that be an /optional/ experience for those that like it would only bring more functionality and more games to the table for everyone.

And it doesn't remotely have any effect on DRM.